I talk about honesty a lot, I think it’s imperative in any kind of business. If you’re deceitful and untrustworthy as a consulting recruiter, nobody will work with you. I’ve always been very pro-candidate in my career, meaning I always looked out for the best interest of the candidate no matter what. That can be a good thing, but most managers in the recruiting biz are looking at the bottom line and are either molding you or mandating you to be pro-company (which I can’t blame them for doing). I guess you just need to learn how to balance both sides of the equation. I personally always bucked the trend, and tried my best to make the candidate happy, while trying to keep in mind the goals of the company.

My tip; ALWAYS disclose the bill rate. A former colleague/consultant of mine that went independent mentioned this on a post I wrote earlier. I’ve always done it, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. But after thinking about it, and talking to some other colleagues, it’s a rarity. In today’s consulting environment, people are going to find out their bill rate anyways, so why not disclose that before submitting to a client position? The way I look at it, they’ll appreciate the openness, and if they don’t like the margin you’re taking, they’re probably not someone you want to work with anyways. Do yourself a favor, open up your books to any incoming consultants. All parties will benefit from the information.

Tags: consulting, disclosing bill rate, honesty

This entry was posted by Ehren Seim on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 8:37 am and is filed under consulting, Job Search, Recruiting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.